


The Provenance of Catherine Langford

by sg_wonderland



Category: Stargate SG-1
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-08
Updated: 2018-03-08
Packaged: 2019-03-28 20:16:58
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,522
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13911384
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sg_wonderland/pseuds/sg_wonderland
Summary: Prompt: Sabrina Gosling: Living her Aunt Catherine’s legacy





	The Provenance of Catherine Langford

**Author's Note:**

> My biggest problem with this story was trying to reconcile a 20-something niece and an 80-year-old aunt. And I could never figure out how, mathematically, to do it. So, for the purpose of this fic, Catherine is Sabrina’s great-aunt.

Sabrina Gosling sat on the wide front porch for long moments, a key clutched in her gloved hand. Eventually, she knew she was going to have to stand up and turn that key in that lock. Just….she just had to get her nerve up.

“Miss Gosling?” She nearly dropped the key in her surprise. “I’m sorry; I didn’t mean to startle you. Are you alright?”

Her brain finally starting firing and she looked up at the stranger. No, she realized, not a stranger. “Dr. Jackson.”

He repeated gently as he knelt in front of her. “Are you alright?”

“Just trying to get my nerve up.” She didn’t know why she confessed that to him, just that it seemed perfectly logical to do so. “I haven’t been here since the wake.”

“Would you like me to…?” He pointed toward the door.

“Oh,” she handed him the key. “Could you?”

He unlocked the door and held it open for her. “It’s really too cold to sit out here.”

Sabrina locked her shoulders in place, rose and made herself go in. The house was just so…Aunt Catherine. The older woman’s spirit so firmly inhabited the house that she wasn’t sure it could ever truly belong to anyone else. She let him usher her into the old-fashioned parlor. “Would it be presumptuous of me to make some coffee?”

“Oh, coffee would be lovely, Dr. Jackson. I can…”

“I know where everything is. Why don’t you just have a seat, warm up? And call me Daniel, please.” She slumped onto the couch while he ignited the gas fireplace. She sat there as he left the room. Obviously, he knew his way around the house, probably better than she did, given that he’d steered her right to the parlor, knew how to light the gas and where to locate the makings of a pot of coffee. Standing, she shrugged off her coat and gloves, letting them drop onto the couch before wandering over to the fire, warming herself as she gazed at the pictures. 

There were some she expected. David and Patricia Langford, the great-grandparents she’d never met, assorted family pictures, several of her grandmother and Aunt Catherine as children, one of a young, handsome Ernest Littlefield and one of the two lovers, reunited in their latter years, yet still obviously very much in love. She took the last photo down and looked at it. Aunt Catherine, Dr. Jackson and some other people she didn’t recognize. Actually, she nearly hadn’t recognized Dr. Jackson, with his long hair. Bringing the picture back with her, she stared at it. Aunt Catherine was simply beaming, and they all seemed so happy.

“Here we go,” Dr. Jackson laid the tea tray on the low table.

Sabrina had to smile. “Aunt Catherine would flip if she saw you using her favorite tea set for coffee.”

He smiled back as he handed her a cup. “I never quite got into the tea habit but it wasn’t for lack of effort on her part.”

Sabrina tapped the picture with a perfectly manicured fingernail. “I almost didn’t recognize you, Dr. Jackson.”

“Oh, Daniel, please. May I…?” He took the picture, wincing. “Oh, I can’t believe she still has…had that one.”

“How old were you? And who are all these other people?”

“I wasn’t as young as you might think I was; I got carded regularly even then.” He scooted closer. “This is Jack, Sam, that’s Teal’c with the funny hat and this is General Hammond.”

“Must have been quite an occasion judging by the smiles.”

“Oh, well,” he fumbled. “I’d kind of been mistakenly reported as dead so…”

“Mistakenly? Dead?” Her eyebrow arched in curiosity.

“Long story but I really wasn’t dead so they were all pretty thrilled to see me.” He looked at the picture for long moments, then said softly. “It all seems like so long ago.”

They sat in silence for awhile, drinking their coffee. “Did you get all the stuff Aunt Catherine left you? The lawyers tried to call you for the reading of the will but you were unavailable.”

“Uh…I was…out of the country. And, actually, that’s what I came to see you about. Are you sure you want me to have all those things? I mean, that’s a lot of items and some of them are quite valuable. The Ra pendant alone…”

“Aunt Catherine was quite firm in who was to get what. I’ll have the lawyers send you a copy of the will, if that will ease your mind?”

He nodded. “So, are you going to keep the house?”

Her eyes flicked around the room. “I have to decide what to do with it. It’s too much house for one person but Aunt Catherine kept it all these years. Even when she was back East going to school, living in New York, in Washington playing politics, she kept it. It’s beautiful and all, but I can’t imagine why she wanted it. This is where she and my grandmother grew up, you know.”

Daniel refilled her cup. “Maybe that’s why she kept it, because it reminded her of good times.”

“My grandmother often described her father as a stern man, a hard man. I can’t imagine there were too many happy times here.”

“She and Ernest courted in this house.” Daniel said. 

Sabrina hadn’t known this and she tried not to resent this man who knew so much more of her beloved aunt. “Maybe that’s why she kept it then. Why she kept coming back to Colorado. She could have lived, worked anywhere, but she always returned here. It was like something was drawing her back.”

“Memories of Ernest?” Daniel suggested.

“There’s so much about her I don’t know. I…”

“I’ll help you any way I can but some of what she did was…”

“Classified. Yes, I know. I know she was an amazing woman but I’m not sure she was always happy.”

“No, I don’t think she was always happy but she was driven, determined. Some people might have called her stern or hard, but there was this little twinkle in her eye and you knew there was a sense of humor lurking just below the surface.”

She stared at the fire. “I wonder if my grandmother lived the life Catherine should have lived. If she and Dr. Littlefield had gotten married and had the children they wanted if her father hadn’t lied to her. Why did he do that?” She turned furious eyes to Daniel.

“I don’t think any of us can know why but maybe he thought it was best for Catherine. Better that she thought him dead than to pine for him the rest of her life.” Daniel spoke carefully, choosing his words.

“But it should have been her choice, shouldn’t it? To know the truth?”

Daniel sighed. “Yes, it should have been her choice. But there isn’t anything we can do about that now. We should just be happy that she and Ernest had each other for at least a few years.”

“And they were happy?” Sabrina needed this to be true. She’d only met Dr. Littlefield once and he’d seemed so out of step with everyone but Catherine; happy enough with Catherine that no one else really registered for him. She liked to think the two of them lived in their own little bubble in this house, that they’d succeeded in shutting the rest of the world out.

“Yes, they were happy. They tried not to dwell on those lost years, focused on what was ahead of them. Not what they couldn’t have.”

“Like all those children she never had.” Sabrina glanced at him. “Aunt Catherine thought of you as a son. I used to resent that but now I see why. You knew her so much better than I ever did.”

“Oh, I wouldn’t say that. We had a lot in common when it came to archaeology. Much like her father, my parents took me on all their digs. It was a unique way to grow up. You can’t truly learn archaeology just by going to school; eventually, you’re going to have to go dig somewhere.”

“I don’t suppose I’ll ever really understand that part of Aunt Catherine. I…could I call you sometime? Just to talk about Aunt Catherine?”

“Absolutely, I’d love that.” He took a card out of his pocket, wrote a couple of numbers on it. “Leave me a message if I’m out, I’ll get back to you. I hope the program eventually gets de-classified, if for no other reason than for people to know what Catherine did for us. We owe her so much more than we’ll ever be able to repay. And I probably owe her more than anyone. She was very special to me.”

She took the card, thought of his words for a long time. “I’m keeping the house.”

“I thought you might. You know, you’re probably more like Catherine than you know.”

Sabrina looked at juxtaposition of the old and new in the room and saw her aunt in both aspects. “I hope so, Daniel, I really do hope so.”


End file.
